


Finding Home

by static_abyss



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Doctor Visits, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Minor Injuries, Nile Freeman-centric, POV Nile Freeman, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: Nile hasn't stopped to think that maybe it's been so long since Andy needed to take care of herself, that she genuinely doesn't know how to do it, now. That perhaps, that means that Andy doesn't know about doctors, or over-the-counter medication, or glasses, or vaccines. Perhaps, what Nile thought was obvious isn't to Andy. And it feels overwhelming to think that something so easy can be so out of Andy's reach, simply because of how long she's lived. Impossible to imagine that maybe, Nile, too, will forget one day.Or, six times Nile had to deal with Andy being mortal.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 102
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ktbl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktbl/gifts).



> Thank you to the mods for running this exchange. I genuinely had a lot of fun participating! Thank you to CGO for being a wonderful beta and helping me get this fic into shape. And thank you to ktbl for all the wonderful prompts.

**_i. the shore at camber sands_ **

The day is bright in East Sussex, the clear blue sky stretching for miles in the distance before it meets the sea on the horizon and disappears. Nile inhales, feeling the warmth of the sun on the top of her head and her shoulders. She can feel the heat rising from the sand beneath her feet, comforting her in its familiarity. She remembers going to the beach with her mother and her father, watching the children running into the waves, feeling alive and safe. Today, the waves crashing in the distance fill her with a longing for her younger days, when she kicked her shoes off and ran into the water, oblivious to the pain of life.

She takes a deep breath, the wind kicking up and blowing her flannel shirt out behind her. She's wearing Booker's shorts, loose around her legs, and one of her own tank tops underneath Andy's flannel. There hasn't been time to go out and buy clothes, but she doesn't mind sharing. It makes things easier to be allowed these intimacies, because they're all forced to talk to each other, even if it's just to pick up a shirt or drop a borrowed one off to its owner.

The thing is, Nile doesn't know them, no matter how many times she's died with them or how many of Merrick's men they've killed. She knows their names, how Joe smiles so wide, Nile thinks it should hurt, how Nicky turns kind eyes on those who need it but never lets any other emotions out. She knows that Booker's sad, something so deeply ingrained that it taints all of his actions, makes it seem as though he walks the world constantly in pain. She even knows that Andy's breaking apart at the seams, that being mortal has thrown her life into chaos, how despite how tall she stands, she's careening out of control.

But Nile doesn't know them. She doesn't know how many brothers and sisters they had, what they'd do if she needed them to be there for her emotionally, how they'd react if she turned her back on them. She's not going to. But if in her desperation to accept that she must have a new family, she made a mistake, she doesn't know what they'd do. She doesn't have the history Booker has with them, and Nile can't deny that the way they walk through life, cutting down everything in their path, frightens her. She understands the why, but it's harder to wrap her head around the rest of it. It's her lack of experience, the way she closed her eyes in one world and woke up in another. It's also the way they change their minds so quickly, how they left Booker one minute and then went after him, inconsistent, almost capricious.

It's a lot, is the thing. Which is why when Andy asked her to go for a walk out at Camber Sands, she said yes. They're still renting a house in London, even though it's been a week since Merrick, and Nile thinks they should be as far away from London as possible. But she asked Andy the day they rented the house in London, and Andy just shrugged and said, "We don't run."

Nile thinks they should learn how to run, especially Andy now that she's mortal, because bullet wounds hurt more when they don't heal. But Nile's new, despite how everyone's been trying to make her feel at home. She doesn't fit yet and some days, she feels it isn't her place to tell Andy what's obvious. Or she assumes it must be obvious, how very dangerous some things can be, until her eyes find Andy in the distance.

She's standing by the water's edge, to the right of Nile, pulling at the collar of her t-shirt. She's sweating and Nile watches her as she scrubs at her nose, then at her head. Nile doesn't know what's happening but she can tell that Andy's uncomfortable, so she lets the heat wash over her again and then heads toward Andy in the distance. The sand slides into Nile's sneakers as she goes, her steps awkward. She's sweating a little by the time she gets to Andy, from the walk and the sun.

She doesn't know how Andy is so calm. She's been standing under the sun with no hat for almost an hour, lost in contemplation. Nile's left her alone because she's also been thinking, letting the peace of the empty beach wash over her. It's a good spot in a high-end neighborhood, quiet because it's a Wednesday afternoon and everyone's either at work or school. But the heat is almost overbearing and Nile knows for a fact that Andy never put on sunscreen.

"Are you all right?" Nile asks when she gets to Andy's side.

Andy looks at her, furrowing and unfurrowing her brow. "Is there something on my face?" she asks.

Nile looks at her, the bags under her eyes, the wrinkles at the corners. She looks the same as when Nile first saw her in the Afghanistan desert. There's the same coiled strength in her stance, a sort of casual comfort in her body. Andy knows how to work what she has and she knows it. But even so, this Andy that stands under the sun seems more relaxed. As she wrinkles her nose to try to get a look at it, Nile can tell that Andy is more at ease than she was when Nile first saw her.

There's an easiness to her gaze, and though she still looks like she's seconds away from falling asleep, it's not the same agitated weariness from before. She's calmer, which means that whatever is happening to her right now isn't something to worry about. But Nile pays attention, sees right away that Andy's nose is bright red and irritated. The color extends to her forehead and she almost laughs when she realizes what's going on.

"You're sunburned," she says.

"What?" Andy asks, reaching up to touch her face.

"You aren't wearing sunscreen," Nile says. "We've been standing in the sun for almost an hour."

"What?" Andy asks again.

Nile thinks of the bullet wound on Andy's side, how she stared at the bloody bandages once they got to the safe house. Nile assumed it was because of the surprise at her wounds not healing. She thought it might have been the pain, how surprising the sting of a bullet could be. She hasn't stopped to think that maybe it's been so long since Andy needed to learn how to clean her wounds that she genuinely doesn't know what to do. That perhaps, that means that Andy doesn't know that the sun can hurt her too, now. Perhaps, what Nile thought was obvious isn't to Andy and the rest of them.

"I've lived too long," Andy said when Nile helped her clean her bullet wound. "I don't know what to do anymore."

Nile thought that meant that Andy's tired, but as she stares at the angry red skin on Andy's face, it occurs to Nile that maybe the not knowing extends further than Andy not seeing the good that they've done. Maybe it includes things like wearing sunscreen and burning in the sun, and it hits her with a pang to know that maybe they've forgotten the way aloe vera feels on sunburned skin. It feels overwhelming to think that something so simple can be so out of their reach, just because of who they are, the thought that she, too, will one day forget, settling heavily in her chest.

"We should go," Nile says.

Andy turns back to the sea, her eyes on the horizon. "No," she says. "I wanted to tell you a story about this place."

This is new, both Andy's willingness to share a story about her past and also voicing the desire to do so. Nile doesn't know what to do, isn't sure she's ready to reciprocate, though she feels like it might be the polite thing to do. A story for a story. But there's a tension running through Andy as she stares at the water, as though she's expecting Nile to reject her. It's _that_ more than anything that convinces Nile to hear her out.

"We should find some shade," Nile says.

Andy shakes her head and sits down on the sand, tucking her feet close to her chest. She rests her hands on top of her knees and waits for Nile to sit. Nile does, feeling the grains of sand sticking to her legs, warmth enveloping her from all sides, the sun, the sand, Andy.

They sit a moment in silence and then Andy tells Nile about the Vikings, about the weight of a shield on her arm and the heavy drag of a sword. She talks about ships larger than anything Andy had ever seen before, the intricate designs at the bow of the ship. Nile watches the waves crashing into each other and imagines the awe of being on the shore when the Viking ships landed, to know that something big and powerful was coming for her. She thinks of Andy, a sword in her hand, jumping onshore and raiding English towns, how she'd cut everyone down with a detached ferocity.

Nile wonders if she learned to kill from the Viking and dismisses the idea as she thinks of more than one thousand years. There's no way Andy didn't know everything there was to know by the time she met the Vikings and followed them on their last raid on Sussex. Which means there's something else Andy wants to tell her with the story of screaming women and ships packed full of spoils. With the tale of how it was sometimes necessary to leave their dead behind.

"Sometimes, you can't go back for everyone," Andy says, turning her head to look at Nile. "You get that, right?"

Nile thinks of Dizzy and Jay at basic, the countless hours they worked to make sure they could go back for each other if they had to. She comes from a place where no one gets left behind, where her family was first, and then her brothers-in-arms were first. It doesn't sit well with her to think that Andy's telling her she might have to leave her behind. No matter how much they still have to learn about each other.

"You went back for Joe and Nicky," Nile says.

Andy nods. "I meant, sometimes we have to leave our dead behind," she says.

That makes more sense, settles into Nile's bones like lead. One day, they'll have to leave Andy behind. One day, Nile will have to keep going even without her mother and brother, the same way she kept going when her father died.

"Not for a while though,” Nile tells her. "Not yet, Andy."

Andy's quiet for a moment, her brown eyes boring into Nile's as the sun beams down on their heads. The waves crash in front of them, the spray reaching Nile and cooling her face. She imagines a time when the roaring of the sea signalled the arrival of death on Viking ships, of Andy fighting for survival, taking and keeping, and leaving a trail of death behind her. Nile imagines the things she's done, how many men she shot trying to get Joe, Nicky, Andy, and Booker out of Merrick's lab. They all have blood on their hands, and she supposes, horrible though it may be to think it, that it's nice to have something in common.

"We should go," Nile says, finally.

"Yeah," Andy says.

But neither of them move, so Nile takes off her flannel and tosses it over Andy's head.

"For the sun," she says when Andy looks at her, an amused smile playing at her lips.

"Thanks," Andy says, moving the shirt enough that it covers her head completely.

There's still sunlight beaming straight onto Andy's face and the angry patch of red skin across her nose is getting worse. But the beach is quiet and Andy doesn't get up, so Nile lays back down on the sand and thinks about Saturdays at the beach in Chicago.

**_ii. mrs. winslow's soothing syrup_ **

It takes four days for Andy's sunburn to heal, two for the pain to stop and another two for the skin to peel and heal over. On the fourth day, Nile watches amused, as Andy complains about suffering for absolutely nothing.

"I look exactly the same," she tells Nile. "What is the point of all that sun if I am going to look exactly the same."

Nile is sitting at the kitchen table in their London townhouse, while Joe and Booker make breakfast behind her. Andy's just come in from the door connecting the kitchen to the living room on Nile's left. She stands in the doorway, her eyes on the patch of sunlight coming in from the windows in front of her. If Nile didn't know any better, she'd say that Andy looks a little resentful.

"I don't think I'd tan in the sun," Booker says.

Nile drops her head over the back of her chair to look at him, catches just a brief glance of Booker's blue shirt and a flash of his smile as he looks down at her.

"Tragic," she tells him, shaking her head and putting on her saddest expression.

Joe laughs and when Nile turns to him, he's already grinning at her, his eyes alight with mischief. She can't tell what he's thinking, but she knows it involves an embarrassing story about Booker. When she looks at Booker, he's glaring at Joe, one finger pointed at him in warning.

"Not yet," Booker says. "She's not ready."

"That's not fair," Nile says, turning to Andy, automatically.

Andy just smiles serenely and takes the chair opposite of Nile. There's no doubt in Nile's mind that she can work the story out of Joe. She's sure he's halfway to telling her already, otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned it. But before she can ask, Nicky walks into the kitchen, sleep-ruffled and wearing the shirt Nile borrowed from Booker last week. It turns out the shirt belongs to Joe but Booker thought it was Andy's, and they spend the rest of breakfast trying to figure out whose fault it is that they've whored out Joe's favorite shirt to the entire team.

In the end, they decide to put the shirt in the communal pile of things that sits on their living room coffee table. It's a mess of assorted weaponry, a rusting machete, clothes, brushes, old paint, and scraps of paper. Nile thinks she saw a bunch of hairpins on it once that went missing the day Joe passed out on the kitchen table and Booker spent an hour putting wildflowers into his hair. Nile was in the kitchen too, and because Booker looked so pleased with himself, she decided to help him. Somehow, Nicky got involved, and when Joe woke up, he looked amazing, with flowers all over his hair and in half his beard. Nile still has the picture saved as her phone lock screen, the edge of Booker's face just visible at the top right, the hint of his shit-eating grin mostly covered by Nicky's face.

Nile doesn't know where Andy was, and as they all scatter to their respective rooms now, she realizes that Andy's been missing a lot these past few days. It's subtle. She's never out of the house or too far from them. She just keeps to her room more often, doesn't come when they call her for game nights. If she joins them at all, it's once things have settled down and everyone is contemplating going to bed. And it occurs to Nile, that perhaps Andy's doing it on purpose, allowing Nile space to get to know the rest of them without her.

It's a little depressing to think that Andy might be doing this because there'll come a day when she won't be there to help them communicate with each other. It throws Nile off as she stands in the living room, looking at the pile of their blended belongings. It's off-putting to be given this opportunity to get to know the team, while also being indirectly asked to take over once Andy's gone. It isn't fair, because Nile doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't have one thousand years behind her like Joe and Nicky. She's not even anywhere close to Booker who's the youngest.

She turns, intending to head to her room upstairs when it occurs to her that Andy's room is closest, to the left and down the hall. She goes there instead, thinking of her mother's worried face as she went to work the first morning after Nile's father died. How her mother had grabbed her face in her hands and told her to take care of her brother. How Nile was ten but knew that her mother needed her, that she had to be good to make things easier on her mom.

She grew up the eldest daughter in a family with only one parent and though, at her age, Nile's worked through the delicate intricacies of being a child with adult responsibilities, she feels cheated in a way. Because it feels as though Andy's managed to sneak in this huge responsibility without Nile noticing. It's not as though Nile will say no, or as though she doesn't want to be part of the team. But it rankles to have her own wishes disregarded, to ask her for this when Nile's still not sure where she fits. She knows herself, knows that this reaction is instinctual, a reflex meant to protect herself, now, because she couldn't when she was a child. She can't help feeling trapped, the years stretching endlessly before her. This can't be her "forever," people needing her to be strong and brave and knowledgeable.

She barely knows herself these days, and to think that one day, she'll have to know what to say and do to keep the rest of them safe hits her harder than she anticipated. She thinks of Dizzy and Jay, and the overwhelming feeling of responsibility that washed over her when she realized that they were being deployed. How she only truly knew what it meant to have another person's life dependent on her when the first gunshots sounded across the desert on their second night there. She imagines feeling that forever, thinks of Andy at Camber Sands telling her that sometimes, the dead have to stay behind.

"Fuck," she says to the empty hallway leading to Andy's room.

She should go because it won't help to get angry at Andy. None of what's happening is her fault. But it isn't Nile's fault either, and her therapist always said, it's better to work things out before they get out of hand. So she takes a deep breath and knocks on Andy's door.

"Come in," Andy calls.

Nile pushes open the door and steps into Andy's room, her right foot sliding out from under her as she steps on a pile of playing cards. She catches herself in time, her hand going out to grab onto the doorframe. When she looks up, her mouth drops open at the sight before her.

"Andy," she says, a little breathless. "What happened to your room?"

There are clothes everywhere, a heap of them on Andy's bed, sweaters and shirts tangled together. On the floor by Nile's feet are an assortment of cards, old stone knives, and what looks like a small marble bust. Nile tries not to think about how much history is lying on the hardwood floor, carelessly tossed aside, as Andy looks for something. That's the only explanation Nile can think of for why she's digging through her closet and why her desk drawers are either pulled out entirely or empty.

"Nile, have you seen my opium?"

Nile stares, sure she misheard. "Your what?" she asks.

Andy sticks her head out from her closet and frowns. "My opium," she says. "It was in a small black bottle."

Nile opens her mouth and closes it. She's not sure she wants to know why Andy needs opium, or why she would have any on her person in the first place.

"I think I have a cold," Andy says when Nile just keeps looking at her. "But I remember someone saying opium was good for colds. And Booker always kept a stash for emergencies."

 _Oh_ , Nile thinks, relieved.

"We don't use opium anymore, Andy."

Andy steps out of the closet. "What are you talking about?" she asks. "I went to a store and bought opium maybe fifty years ago."

"I think that might have been more like a hundred years ago," Nile says.

Andy just looks at her, and Nile can't imagine ever being old enough to think that fifty and a hundred are an interchangeable amount. She looks back at Andy's room, at all the scattered pieces of Andy's life, how there's a cellphone next to what looks like a Fabergé egg. It's too much at the moment to think that Andy owns an authentic Fabergé egg, so Nile ignores it and turns back to Andy with a sigh.

"You know," she says. "You can just buy some Dayquil now."

Andy gives her a blank expression so Nile shakes her head, says, "come on," and heads back down the hallway.

She hears Andy following her so she doesn't stop as she heads for the front door. They have a pharmacy a few blocks away, and as Andy falls into step beside Nile, they slow down. It's a nice day, with just enough wind that the air doesn't feel muggy, and the change of scenery helps ease the tension Nile's been carrying since she realized that Andy's been avoiding her.

She doesn't want to think about responsibilities though, not when the day is bright and Andy's walking next to her, muttering about simple home remedies. That she's talking about opium registers again, and Nile can't help her laughter as she imagines walking into a pharmacy and asking someone for a bottle of their best opium. But the laughter doesn't last long as she thinks of all the other things that Andy doesn't know, simple everyday things that Nile assumes everyone must know.

"Oh shit, Andy," she says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "Tell me you have all your vaccines."

"I...what?" Andy asks.

And really, Nile thinks, she shouldn't be the only one dealing with this.

**_iii. conversations at a london safe house_ **

"So let me see if I understood correctly," Booker says. "You want to take Andy to the doctor?"

Nile nods and buries her head in her hands. She's sitting on the living room couch between Joe and Nicky. Booker is on the coffee table in front of her, their collection of miscellaneous garbage pushed to one side. Andy's being completely unhelpful, spread out across the armchair to Joe's right, flipping through a book of modern medicine that Nile got from Nicky's room. She doesn't understand how no one is concerned right now. Nicky has an entire book on modern medicine, all the ways bacteria and viruses can kill a person spelled out for him in great detail. It doesn't make sense that he isn't the least bit concerned that Andy's walking around without vaccines.

"Why am I the only one concerned about this?" she asks.

Joe pats her shoulder and makes eye contact with Nicky. Nile can practically feel their silent communication and she's tempted to make a break for it now when they're distracted. She could just go, she thinks wildly, get up and walk out the door and never come back. It's a fleeting thought, something her wired body suggests, but that the logical part of her brain knows she isn't going to do. It doesn't make things less overwhelming though, knowing that these people are her responsibility, that she's invested in their well-being.

This is her future now, working with them, helping them, watching horrified as Andy picks up Booker's cup from the table and takes a drink. Nile's not sure how viruses work with immortal bodies, whether any of them can give Andy anything. She thinks they should be safe though, because none of them have died of the flu as far as she knows. Maybe they pick up antibodies after they're exposed to viruses and their immortality keeps them from actually dying, or brings them back when they do. It's something Nile will have to talk to Nicky about later.

For the moment, she's back to watching Andy's careless sprawl, her disregard for the mess that exists outside of their four walls.

"Andy," Nile says. "You have to go to the doctor."

Andy flips the page on Nicky's book and looks up at Nile. "Have I ever told you about Rodin?" she asks.

It's an effective distraction, because now Nile's thinking about the abandoned mine they used as a hideout and the pang of horror she felt at seeing the Rodin tucked away, carelessly. She thinks of all the things that the others must have picked up in their long lives, how many other pieces of history are lying in other safe houses, collecting dust. She thinks of the Fabergé egg she saw in Andy's room, the knives that look like they belong to another time.

"Okay," she says. "I'm listening. But we're talking about this after."

Andy smirks at her and Nile rolls her eyes.

"This is a good story," Booker says.

"Though not as interesting as Booker and Freud," Nicky says.

He sounds so casual when he says it, as though he's mentioned that Booker has blond hair and nothing else. Nile turns to him and sees the small smile at the corner of his mouth.

"That's not fair," she says, turning to Joe. "He can't do that."

But Joe just holds his hands up and shrugs. Nile looks between Andy and Booker, undecided about which story she wants to hear first. The moment stretches and it's so easy for Nile's thoughts to go wild in the space afforded to her. They're giving her time to choose which story she wants to hear, inviting her into their lives and their pasts. She thinks of all the other times she's spent with Booker, Joe, and Nicky, how Andy's absence was the loudest part of their time together. That's what decides it for her in the end, the fact that Andy's here, willingly sharing a part of her with Nile where everyone can see her do it.

Their living room isn't Camber Sands on a weekday, empty but for the crashing waves. Andy's here with them, watching them lean towards her, all of them already decided as to what story they want to hear. This is the way it should be, Nile thinks. Andy at the center, the leader, because she knows how to do it, knows what all of them need. Nile could never replace her, doesn't want to become the center of another family.

She just wants to be a person, with defined wants and needs, living for herself, selfish for just one moment. All she wants is for someone else to take care of the important things, to tell her what to do so that Nile can have the freedom to walk away and be herself. Even if she still isn't sure who exactly she is, who she is without her family, without her friends, she just wants to be allowed to live.

She sighs, lets the air leave her lungs until there's nothing left. She hates how she's spinning out of control over something that isn't even a given yet. Andy's still alive, and who knows what might happen in the next few years, what might happen between now and next year. For all they know, Andy could start healing again and all Nile's panic would have been for nothing.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," her therapist was fond of saying. "You can only react to what's happening now, because the future hasn't happened yet."

So Nile exhales and says, "Tell me about Rodin."

-

The thing is, Nile doesn't have control over others, only herself.

The thing is, the more Andy talks and the more the others respond to her, the more Nile realizes that she can't do this. She can't imagine forever, can't imagine not having Andy to guide her, to meet Joe's eyes and share that look that makes him grin wide and happy. She can't picture herself reaching out to touch Booker's hand and seeing him respond to her the way he responds to Andy. How he settles under her touch, the tension leaving his body. She can't see Nicky ever looking at her with that calm fondness that he directs at Andy.

They're all just so cohesive as a group, blended together around Andy, and Nile doesn't know how they're all supposed to keep going without her. It seems strange for a moment that Nile's world is spinning out of control at the thought that they might have to. She hasn't known these people longer than a month but she's already mourning the loss of one of them. It makes no sense.

"I have to go," she says, standing up in the middle of Andy's story.

She doesn't know where she's going, knows only that to stay in the living room, surrounded by their obvious camaraderie, makes her feel like she's drowning. She goes for the front door, heading out into the quiet evening. The streetlights are on, casting an orange glow on the surrounding houses. She chooses to go left, heads down the street and takes turns at random. She just wants to be gone, as far from Andy as possible. But she should have known better than to think she'd be able to get away, because just as she's coming up to Paddington Station, she hears Andy calling her name.

Nile turns quickly, trying to hide the fact that she wants to run. "Andy," she says, softly.

"You left," Andy says, as she comes to a stop in front of Nile.

Her eyes are searching as they skim over Nile's face. She doesn't say anything but Nile can feel the worry radiating off her. It's unsettling how much Nile feels comforted by the thought that Andy cared enough to come after her. She thinks of her mother and how she'd sit with Nile at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in her hand as she asked Nile about her day.

"I miss my mom," she says.

The words are out before Nile can stop them. But Andy seems to expect them.

She smiles a little sadly and says, "come on."

They walk back down the street, turning every now and then, until Nile starts to recognize the houses. Andy guides her back to the steps outside of their rented house. They sit, shoulders brushing as Nile breathes in the night air. She misses her home, the loud streets of Chicago, a mixture of the train, music, and people living their lives. It's too quiet on their London street, tucked away as it is on the side streets. She wants the noise of a bigger city to drown out how lost she feels.

"You can tell me what's wrong," Andy says.

Nile shrugs. "Just things," she says. "Nothing you have to worry about."

Andy looks at her, her gaze assessing. "If you don't want to, that's fine," she says. "We can talk about Rodin instead."

Nile nods, her eyes on the cement steps of the house across from them. They're painted a bright red that clashes horribly with the orange streetlights.

"I met Rodin when he agreed to be Joe's mentor," Andy says, amusement clear in her voice. "Everyone knew that Rodin used his pupils as models, and I think Nicky was really looking forward to having a life-sized statue of Joe. I was curious and bored, mostly bored, so I went with Joe to his first lesson and that was it. I don't think Nicky's ever really forgiven me for the lack of life-sized Joe statues, but I had fun. Besides, Nicky and Joe owe me for Michelangelo."

It would be so easy to ask about Michelangelo, to fall back onto safe territory, but the night is dark and it's just Andy and Nile.

"I don't know how to be a leader without letting it eat me up inside," she says. "I can't...I've never just been me, Andy. Do you understand that? It's always been me and my brother, or me and my mom, or me and Dizzy, or me and Jay."

She stops at the feel of Andy's hand on her shoulder, warm and solid.

"It's not just you," Andy says.

Nile takes a shaky breath in and holds it, thinks of her mother and her brother, of her father buried next to his parents in Chicago. It's always been Nile who has to accommodate, even when she had Dizzy and Jay, even when she had her mom and brother. She's always had to tuck pieces of herself away so that others could fit, always had to put herself last because her mother needed her. And she's never really let herself think about how unfair that was, how much it hurt to have to grow up so quickly, how those growing pains still linger within her. She doesn't want to do it again, give herself up piece by piece until there's nothing left of her.

"I promise you that we're here for you," Andy says, moving closer to Nile on the steps.

It seems impossible that that could be true. Impossible that someone might see her and catch her before she falls, that Andy can promise something so insubstantial but so important. The truth is that Nile's scared of tearing herself to pieces to keep others whole. She's terrified of who she was when all that mattered was keeping her family together, how much of her personality and well-being depended on her mother's happiness.

She loves her mother, loves her brother with every bit of her heart. If Nile had to do everything over, she'd do it exactly the same, give herself over bit by bit. But she's old enough to acknowledge the places where it hurts to think about her childhood, how much of it was out of her mother's control, how unfair it was that after everything her father did for his country, his country turned its back on his children and his widow. How a pathetic check was all they got to make up for all the lost time and the ache that still runs deep in Nile's veins.

She worked so hard to be someone after she left home, to find the things that were just hers and not her family's. But then she met Jay and Dizzy, and Nile was so used to absorbing everyone else into her orbit that it became second nature to protect them. To give them anything they needed, to keep them safe. She trusted them with her life, but she also spent a lot of her time worrying about keeping them safe.

She's never been allowed to just be her own person, to do whatever she wants without anyone telling her she can't. It scares her to think that she might have that opportunity now, that the years stretch endlessly before her, hers for the taking. She doesn't know what to do with so much freedom.

"I can't be you," she tells Andy.

"You're not," Andy says, sliding closer to Nile and linking their arms.

She doesn't pull Nile to her, but it's the most natural thing in the world for Nile to lean her head on Andy's shoulder and close her eyes. Andy presses her cheek to the top of Nile's head and they sit there, both of them listening to the far-off sounds of traffic, that hint of life that echoes in the silence of the night.

"They'll take care of you," Andy says, after a moment. "We all take care of each other. It's the only way to survive this."

Nile thinks of all the scars she carries from her childhood, how they've shaped her into the person she is. She's done her best to never make anyone feel what she felt when she realized her life couldn't revolve around her family. She's tried to accept all the things that were out of her mother's hands and knows deep in her heart that she'll never blame her mother for what's happened. They were put in an impossible situation and they all did their best to make it out together.

The rest of it—that horrible sense of responsibility that runs deep in Nile's bones, the way she falls into the same patterns of giving more than she should, how she can't remember the last time she did something that was just for herself without regard to what anyone else thought—is just a consequence of their circumstances. But they're not the only things she has.

More than anything, the things that will always stay with her, and what she's carried close to heart since she was a child, are the sound of her mother's laughter, her brother's fond teasing, the way her father knew the history of his favorite art pieces by heart. There's been more good than anything else in Nile's life, and she won't ever stop being grateful for the time she had with her parents, with her brother. But she made a choice after Merrick, and hard as it may be, she has to follow through.

She inhales, imagines that she can feel each of her memories settling within her. Then, she closes her eyes and lets Andy's warmth settle around her.

**_iv. vacation in the big apple_ **

Summer gives way to fall which gives way to winter, which brings with it a new city and another safe house. Nile doesn't check in on her mother or brother, but Copley calls her every month to let her know they're all right. She doesn't ask for pictures, though she knows Copley takes them for her anyway. It's too painful to look at them now, and Nile meant it when she told Andy they were going to take care of her for as long as she wanted.

Most days, that means chasing after her during missions while Andy charges forward as though she's still immortal. They've all had to learn how to work around Andy's inability to stay still and let anyone else manage whatever situation they're in. It seems laughable now to think that Nile was worried about being forced to take Andy's place. It seems impossible that Andy will ever let her, that she won't go fighting to her last breath after she's thrown herself face-first into battle. It would be funny, if Nile and the others didn't have to stitch so many wounds closed.

But today is their day off, just the five of them huddled around the TV in their tiny combined kitchen and living room. Nile hates how small the townhouses are in New York, everything crammed into tiny spaces, glorified apartments advertised as houses. Still, it helps that they're back in a city, loud and obnoxious though the people can be. She likes going outside and hearing the blaring of car horns, how everyone steps into line as they walk the streets. She does well in cities.

Andy, unfortunately, does not.

"Why are the lights in this apartment shit?" Andy asks from her spot in between Booker and Nicky.

"House," Nicky says, without looking away from the soccer game on TV.

Nile knows the only reason he's paying so much attention is that he and Booker made a bet as to which team would win. And even though this is a recording of a game that Joe saw last summer, Nicky and Booker are far too invested to care. They're also bored because Copley told them he was taking a vacation and so, by extension, they too are taking a vacation. The extra time is already starting to grate on everyone's nerves, especially because no one ever leaves Andy alone and probably won't for the next decade.

"Why are the lights in this house shit?" Andy asks, again.

"You're not even watching the game," Nile says, looking at Andy turning her book toward the light from the TV. "Also, all our lights are on."

It's true that the overhead bulbs are on. Just as it's true that New York City wiring on old houses is garbage, and Nile hadn't even noticed the lights were on before Andy mentioned them.

"I can't see," Andy complains, finally getting up from the couch.

Nile watches her go into the back room that's supposed to be a family room but has just become a room to store all the extra things they don't know what to do with. Nile keeps the last gun she used at Merrick Pharmaceuticals in there. Booker keeps his growing collection of fridge magnets too close to his laptop, which has somehow made a home in the room for discarded things. Nile thinks it's a form of protest against their forced vacation. Joe's favorite shirt is also in that room, only because Booker wore it last and keeps forgetting to wash it.

That's where Andy heads as everyone else goes back to watching the game, Joe trying his best not to give away who's going to win. He's infuriatingly good at keeping a straight face, though Nile is almost a hundred percent sure Nicky already knows who's going to win. Maybe that's why he keeps looking so intensely at the TV.

"Hey, Nicky," Nile says, because she's also bored. "Isn't it cheating if Joe already told you who wins the game?"

"What?" Booker asks, looking between Nicky's blank expression and the smirk on Joe's face.

"I didn't tell him anything," Joe says.

At the same time, Nicky says, "Joe would never cheat."

"Bullshit," Booker says, pointing an accusing finger at Nicky. "Belize, November '85."

"That doesn't count," Joe says. "You said you were good at Poker."

Nile watches amused as Booker goes off into a long rant about the real rules of Poker. They're still going at it when Andy comes back into the room, Nicky backing Joe up against Booker, who's started googling Poker rules on his phone.

"Oh no," Andy says, rolling her eyes. "Is this about Mumbai?"

"Belize," Booker, Joe, and Nicky say at the same time.

"What happened in Mumbai?" Nile asks.

"Betrayal," Joe says.

"Strippers," Booker adds.

Nicky shakes his head sadly and with what looks like deep regret, says, "Four hundred screaming fans and one unlucky peacock."

Nile turns to Andy, who shrugs and says, "Magic."

Nile's going to demand the whole story and is already looking to Booker, when she notices Andy back on the couch reading her book through a magnifying glass.

"Andy," Nile says. "What are you doing?"

"Words are too small," Andy says, without looking up from her book. "I don't know what's the obsession with fine print, today."

"Yeah," Booker says, grinning widely at Nile. "They don't make hieroglyphics like they used to."

"Fuck off," Andy says, still trying to read.

Nile watches her a moment as Booker and Nicky start arguing over the fairness of their bet. Andy keeps squinting even as she angles the magnifying glass over her book. When she gives up and just holds her book out at arm-length, Nile realizes what's going on.

"You need glasses," she says.

Booker and Nicky cut off mid-argument and as one, they all turn to look at Andy.

"What?" she asks.

Nile leans over and takes the book out of Andy's hands. She skims through a few pages until she finds a short passage. She hands the book back to Andy and tells her to read. Andy frowns at her but does as she's told, holding the book out in front of her and squinting.

"Glasses," Nile says.

-

The trip to the optometrist on 60th street and Park Avenue goes smoothly enough that Nile starts to think that everything is going to be fine. It's a bit like their trip to the doctor friend of Copley's, who gave Andy all the available vaccines and didn't ask questions. 

Andy's optometrist is a young lady who looks like she's around Nile's age. She's chatty and bubbly and all around everything Andy hates about young people. Nile's not included. That was made perfectly clear the first time Andy complained about the college kids who liked to hang out in Andy's favorite Starbucks.

Now, Nile gives Andy anywhere between five and ten minutes before she gets up and leaves the doctor's office forever. Except then, the strangest thing happens. The doctor asks Andy to sit on the chair and Andy goes quietly. She follows the instructions to read the letters in front of her and even makes a joke about being old.

It's a little frightening the way Andy and the doctor go back and forth about age and wrinkles and the benefits of being an older person with money and job security. By the time Andy gets around to mentioning that she's been to most of the countries around the world, Nile is trying her best to hold back her laughter. She keeps a straight face until they're outside and Andy's tucking her receipt into her jacket pocket.

"So," Nile says. "Are you keeping the receipt because you need it to get your glasses next week, or is it because the doctor wrote her number on the back?"

Andy bites back her grin and starts walking.

"Come on, Andy," Nile says. "You know I want to hear all about your girlfriends, now."

There's a moment where Andy goes quiet, the smile disappearing from her face. Nile thinks of water and the dreams of choking that woke her up that first night in the church outside of France. She thinks of Quynh and an iron coffin, and she doesn't know how to say that she's sorry. But Andy just shakes her head and keeps walking.

"I don't do girlfriends," she says. "Or boyfriends."

Nile doesn't ask why.

They both know better than that.

**_v. choosing a primary care physician_ **

Andy with reading glasses is the most glorious thing Nile has seen in a long time. It fills her with joy to think that Andromache the Scythian, master of the axe, can't read a book without having to pull out her wire-framed glasses from their case. It's a delight to watch the way Andy gets used to having them on her face, how she sometimes goes to push them up her nose when she isn't wearing them. Nile takes so many pictures that her phone reminds her to store some in her OneDrive. Booker also takes pictures, so Nile doesn't feel too bad about the number of pictures of Andy in glasses that she has on her phone.

Things are good, everyone adjusting to the changes, to Andy having to wear glasses and needing to rest in between missions. It's all genuinely fine, until a grenade goes off a little too close to Andy and no one gets to her in time. They can't even take her to a hospital because there are cameras there and they've been trying their best to keep away from those. Copley tells them he's sending someone to get them out, but that still takes more time than any of them are comfortable with. By the time Andy's in Copley's living room, being looked after by Copley's friend, it's been two hours since the grenade went off.

Luckily, Andy only has bruises and one broken rib, so they don't have to stay over at Copley's for the night. The only thing is that the doctor who treated Andy catches her right before they head out and, with the mild manner of the truly professional, tells her that she has to watch her blood pressure. And though Nile always knew that Andy's habit of drinking too much vodka, and not enough water, was going to catch up with her someday, she really didn't expect it to be so soon.

Which brings her to Sunday, a week after the grenade incident, and the meeting they're all having with Andy, which is very much an intervention, no matter how much Booker insists it isn't.

"We just want to help," Nile tells Andy.

"Not me," Booker says, from where he's lying on the couch and balancing his flask on his chest. "I was brought here against my will."

Andy narrows her eyes at him but takes the seat Nile offers her. Joe and Nicky are both out on a coffee run, but they told Nile she could start without them. They hadn't even bothered to make it look like they weren't running for their lives when they said goodbye to her earlier. But it's fine. Nile can do this.

"Listen, man," she says, shaking her head at Andy. "You need to eat a vegetable."

Andy blinks at her and points to Booker's flask. "Is that vodka?" she asks.

Booker nods.

"Vodka is made out of potatoes," Andy says.

"You need a primary care physician," Nile says, rolling right past Andy's obvious attempt to distract her with a joke.

"Did you know doctors in the early 1900s used to diagnose women with hysteria, even if all they had was a headache?" Andy asks.

Nile narrows her eyes at her. "You're going to the doctor," she says. "You need to take care of yourself, Andy."

She doesn't mean for it to sound so pleading. Nile's intention was to talk Andy into going to see a doctor using logic and reasoning. But Andy's starting to look like she might entertain the thought of modern medicine, and Nile's not above playing to Andy's soft side. She doesn't need to though because, after a moment, Andy sighs and says, "all right. Bring me the doctor."

-

It's actually much more complicated than just finding a doctor online and making Andy an appointment. They have to make sure that there's nothing in Andy's blood that might arouse suspicion, no antibodies against extinct viruses or bacteria. In the end, it's much easier to let Copley handle it. He finds another doctor friend who doesn't ask questions and will draw Andy's blood in the comfort of Copley's living room.

Andy specifically says that she wants Booker to go with her, her excuse being that Booker's constant cursing and sympathetic winces relax her. Nile doesn't argue and instead spends the rest of the day playing chess with Joe in their living room. After a while, Nicky starts keeping score using complicated rules that mean Joe's winning.

"That's cheating," Nile says.

Nicky just smiles at her and shrugs.

"All right," she says. "You're on."

They're on their third game when Andy and Booker get home, Joe halfway out of his shirt and Nile wearing a beanie she thinks might belong to either Andy or Booker. Nicky has three layers over his t-shirt and five different socks at Nile's last count. They're playing a hybrid of chess and strip poker, though Joe seems to be the only one losing clothes. Nile highly suspects that Nicky's rigged this game.

"Why?" Andy asks when she sees them.

She's holding her arm out at her side, a Hello Kitty bandaid over the crook of her left elbow. Her hair is styled away from her face, her leather jacket hanging around her shoulders as she looks to Nicky for an explanation.

Nicky shrugs and says, "Nile started it."

"I...I didn't...no, yeah, it was me," she says, grinning at Andy.

It's the first time since they left London that Nile's felt this at ease and carefree. She's doing much better since she and Andy had their talk on the steps outside of the London safe house. It's not that things are better. Andy's still mortal, still drinking too much, not sleeping enough, and charging forward during missions no matter how much they all wish she didn't. But even so, there's something about the way they've all fit together that settles Nile. It's comforting that even though Booker still walks around looking like he hates the world, he'll always stop whatever he's doing to watch a movie with Nile. It's nice waking up to Joe at the breakfast table, waiting for her so they can do the crossword together. Even Nicky, quiet as he is, never forgets to bring Nile something whenever he goes to the store.

She fits, is the thing. Somewhere in the mess of the others' lives, Nile's found her place. She feels it the clearest with Andy, how she listens to what Nile has to say, as though there's nothing in the world that matters more. How Andy always leaves a spot open at her side for Nile to take, how well she listens when Nile needs to talk about her mom, her dad, or her brother. Easy to know that Andy wants her here when she gives up a good Sunday afternoon to get bloodwork done just because Nile asked her to.

"We saved you pasta," she says to Andy, now.

"Thank fuck," Andy says, shrugging out of her coat. "I'm starving."

They all turn to look at Andy's coat on the floor as she heads to the kitchen. Booker's the one who picks it up, throwing it over the back to the living room couch. He looks after Andy and then back at Nile.

"You should go talk to her," he says.

"Why?" Nile asks, but she's already standing up from her spot on the floor.

Booker shrugs as he takes the beanie off Nile's head. "I don't think she likes needles," he says.

**_vi. promises in a dying garden_ **

Nile doesn't find Andy in the kitchen, but the backdoor to their shared backyard is open, the cool November breeze raising goosebumps on Nile's skin. She snatches the first coat she finds, as she passes the kitchen chairs, and pulls it on. Then she heads outside, down the rickety metal staircases that leave her in front of their usually padlocked fence. It's open now, their concrete blending into the cleaner stone of the communal sitting space in front of the garden. They share their backyard with three other neighbors, an old lady, who keeps confusing Andy and Nile, and a gay couple with a tiny Chihuahua that's in love with Joe.

It's discreet for a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, populated enough that no one looks at them twice, but without the business of Midtown. Their shared backyard consists of a large garden, bordered by a stone walkway, and a simple fountain at the center. That's where Nile finds Andy, sitting at the foot of the fountain, one of her boots just touching the grass. She's not wearing a jacket, but she has her arms crossed around her left shin as she stares out at the dying plants.

"It's cold," Nile says.

Andy makes a noncommittal noise and keeps staring at the plants in front of her. Nile waits a moment to see if Andy's going to say anything else, and when she doesn't, she takes a seat next to her. She feels the cold from the concrete through her jeans and is immediately freezing despite her jacket. She turns to Andy, sees her bare arms, and rolls her eyes.

"You're going to freeze to death," she says, scooting closer to Andy so that she can get the coat around both of them.

Andy curls her left arm closer to her chest, the pink Hello Kitty bandaid standing out against all the black Andy's wearing.

"Booker said you don't like needles," Nile says carefully.

There are things that Andy doesn't like but forces herself to tolerate. Crashing waves on a sandy beach being the biggest of them. Nile's heard that story, the storm-tossed sea where Andy almost drowned when she went looking for Quynh the first time. Andy hates having large empty spaces at her back because they make her feel like something's waiting to get her, some leftover instinct from when she was younger. She thinks it's because she died stabbed in the back on a battlefield, the rolling hills behind her as she bled out. Nile thinks it's because they watch too many scary movies.

In any case, the needles are a new fear.

"Is it that they hurt?" Nile asks.

Andy shrugs, resting her chin on top of her knee. "I just don't like them," she says. "But it wasn't the needles. I was thinking about things, got into my own head."

Nile hums in agreement, stretching her legs out in front of her as she gets more comfortable on the cold ground. She feels like there's an important conversation coming, even if she doesn't know exactly what it will be.

"What were you thinking?" Nile asks.

Andy's quiet for a moment, the silence stretching out before them. It's a tangible thing, crawling up Nile's spine and putting her on alert. She knows Andy's on edge, can feel it in the tension running along her shoulders.

"I wanted to ask you something," she says finally, turning her head to look at Nile.

"Sure," Nile says.

"I want to teach you how to use my axe," she says. "I figured I won't need it at some point, what with arthritis being a thing now, and I don't want it to sit around rusting when someone else could be using it."

"Oh," Nile says, thinks about the falling leaves on the tomato plants in front of them.

She thinks of all the things Andy's told her over the last few months, how Nile can read Andy's mood as though they're an extension of hers. She knows what things are too hard for Andy to talk about, knows that Quynh lingers like a shadow around every happy moment in Andy's life. But it works both ways, because Andy knows exactly what to say when Nile gets a text from Copley that reminds her that she's not part of her brother's life anymore.

She thinks of Camber Sands and the pieces of herself that Andy's shared with her, and she realizes that she's done very little to return the favor. As they sit there and Nile imagines the weight of Andy's axe in her hands, she accepts that all of her relationships, but especially this one with Andy, have to be equal, a give and take. So she takes a deep breath, and with the wind making them shiver on the hard stone floor, Nile tells Andy about her dad.

She tells Andy about how her dad liked to make time to visit museums wherever he was stationed. Before he was deployed, he'd take Nile with him, show her the paintings and the sculptures, tell her who made what and how. When she was old enough, he'd quiz her as they went, making obvious mistakes so could Nile correct him. Sometimes, he'd take her to churches, pointing out the architecture, the peaks and towers, the heavy wooden doors. He liked old churches best, the ones with character that seemed as though they'd been standing forever. And because Nile loved her father, the old churches were her favorite too.

She tells Andy all she can bear to share and when she's done, Andy leans into her. "He sounds lovely," she says.

"He was," Nile says, looking out at the garden but not really seeing it.

If she tries, she can still see her dad as he looked the last time she saw him, smiling wide at her, his dress blues over his shoulder in their protective sleeve.

"You know we won't leave you, right?" Andy asks.

"We," not "they," no separation like there was when they talked in London. Nile turns to her and Andy's there to meet her eyes, understanding clear in her expression. Nile thinks of all the people she's met in her life who made an impact, about how she's left them all behind her. She has Booker, Joe, Nicky, and Andy now, something stronger than themselves tying them all together. They're meant to be. The way they've come together, and the fact that there's only five of them in the whole world, proves it.

So if Andy wants to teach Nile how to use her axe, then Nile's more than happy to try. They're all already using Joe's shirt and Andy's hat like they belong to all of them. Having two people know how to take care of Andy's axe is just par the course for them. It doesn't change anything. They'll still keep fighting, keep hoping that something changes and Andy stays with them. Fifty years is a long time, and who knows what will happen between then and now.

"I'm not going anywhere, either," Nile says, meaning it more than she could ever put into words.

"Good," Andy says. "Now come on."

She stands, reaches out to catch Nile's hand, and pulls her up. Then, together, they head back towards the sound of laughter coming from their open backdoor.


End file.
